Drustvo ResitiEno Mednarodno

The conference we're hosting for the time that Sheila will be here is coming together nicely along with the finishing touches on the book. Last night we met with our "middle man/graphics guy" at Studio Oko and once we get a couple items to him and he registers the book for us it will go off to the printer, probably on Monday. We're only ordering 100 books to begin with. Five of those have to go to the national library, we'll give one to Sheila for the SaveOne headquarters and hopefully we'll be selling the rest at the conference with just enough to spare to have our first class.

We've sent word out all over Slovenia about the conference and given Ivana the task of calling pastors and making sure they're announcing this in their church and making use of the flyers we've mailed. I'm going to talk about the ministry at a lady's bible study next Monday. Since the women are Christians I haven't had any "nudging" to share for the whole time, just present the ministry and ask for help.

Sheila sent out her regular newsletter from SaveOne and it gave a little more information about what she'll be doing in The Netherlands and Germany. The Netherlands is actually considering changing some of their abortion laws! Once she gets here she mentioned that she may be asking us to oversee new chapters in Germany at least. "European Directors." I have to laugh.

I used to feel guilty after Timothy and I went through the class. We were seldom in a position to support the ministry financially and whenever there were things to do I didn't have the time. I think I went to Sheila's to stuff envelopes one Saturday morning. And now, we're making up for our inactivity.

Sentence Building

It's a cold, rainy day here. Fortunately for me I've gotten my work done and have had extra time to read, which is my favorite thing to do on a cold, rainy day.

Clay and I were upstairs in the family room, he was playing with his puzzles and I was reading my book. All of a sudden he yells, "Uh oh!" I looked up and he was looking out the sky light. I mentioned that it was rain that he was hearing. "Yeah, it's raining outside and the puppies are eating." His words weren't that clear, but that's what he wanted to say. I assumed he was going to say the puppies were cold or wet, but no, they are eating.

More on Clay

Clay has developed into a farmer. Every time he looks out the window or a door gets opened he comments, "It’s cold art dur," or "there's no (snow) art dur." Timothy just came up behind me and read this out loud. Clay is in the bathtub and could hear him so he's saying it now. I need to record it b/c the accent is funny.

Poor Thad had such a stuffy nose this morning that he couldn't eat! I tried to suction stuff out which really made him scream. I got a lot of stuff out, but it didn't seem to help him. Finally he got so tired he laid down for a nap and slept for about an hour...with Vicks in his nose and eucalyptus oil on the radiator. This seemed to help and he was able to eat a full meal.

Their glands are still swollen, but the pediatrician didn't seem to be worried about it. I've made an appointment Wednesday morning with a homeopathic doctor that I'd met several months ago. She is a medical doctor, but was trained in Switzerland to look at things from a better point of view. I'm very excited about going to her. She thinks I'm a good mother for not vaccinating my children unlike the pediatrician we were seeing. She thinks I'm a bad mother.

Train up a Child...

The other day I almost missed a step as I was going up the stairs. Clay came to see what the commotion was and I told him I almost slipped and hurt my foot. He rattled something off about Mommy, huit and puet. Then he said, "Cay pway." So he laid his hands on my puet and prayed a pretty lengthy prayer that it wouldn't huit anymore. It worked!

11 February 2006

6:30 a.m. Thad and I are sitting here and he's telling me, "da-da-da-da!" He's a very informed individual. I tried to take some video on the webcam so we could email it, but the camera isn't working. I hope it's something Timothy can figure out or just the lens needing to be cleaned and not a need for a new camera.

Thadeus is like Timothy and Clay is like me. As a baby Clay lived for routine. We did the same thing every day and his little body liked it. Thadeus seems to live to ruin my routine. I think I have a schedule figured out for him, but it calls for times of intense crying and making sure he's good and tired. Thad is sleeping for nine hours at night and at least three in the afternoon so it's worth the fuss.

There are things we need to get on video that Thad does. One is his "da-da-da-da" talk. Another is his laugh. When he laughs really hard he starts screaming. It's not a high-pitched annoying scream. It's a deep throat growling scream.

We've purchased our tickets for this summer. Tim and Karen are coming here on 24 June and we'll all leave together on 2 July. We'll be in Minot the first week and then in Michigan for a week. Another short trip. Hopefully it won't be as busy as the last one was.

I need to go make a couple more things for the baby shower tomorrow and get ready to go to Steve's. We're meeting with Steve and Barbara today about hosting a conference while Sheila Harper is here.

Oh! Some more good news. The Baptist church published a little book called Meetings with God. It has testimonies of people from all over Slovenia. I had to go ask my neighbor friend about parking cars by their barns for the baby shower so I took her a copy of this book. This is the lady who’s 10 month old died suddenly in her sleep last October. She said she's very happy, but she still has hard days. She really appreciated it and thanked me. Then she said they're expecting another baby in July!

O Happy Day!

I found out Wednesday evening that I have a new niece. Adia "Faith" Bowen, the smartest little girl ever, was born to my sister Becky. She can't wait to meet me. From what I understand her older brother and sisters are gaga for her and Landis was good enough to offer tips to help Becky while she was in labor. He's pretty educated for five years.

We were down at the coast yesterday; almost all night too. Some friends of ours, Damjan and Tatjana, got married and it was a traditional wedding, for the most part. We had a beautiful day for it, but very windy. Driving home last night...this morning, there were advisories b/c the wind was over 100 kilometers/hour. First, there was the legal/civil wedding, which took about 10 minutes, and then the Christian wedding. After that everyone went to a hotel for a six course dinner and salsa dancing. I got some great video of Clay trying to salsa. It’s normal for weddings to last all night here, but down in Serbia they last three days! The hotel was nice enough to let us use a room for the evening where I could go and feed Thad and change diapers in privacy. We didn’t have church this morning so we got to sleep in a little. Everyone got naps today except me. Pity me, please. I'll send pictures of the wedding in one of my photo albums very soon.

Another couple was there from our church that we hadn't seen in months. They've been trying to get pregnant for the past year. Recently we heard that she's had extreme morning sickness and she hasn't gone anywhere and even wanted to talk to people she's been feeling so horrible. She's three months pregnant and showed me the first ultra sound picture from Friday. Congratulations, Delores and Bostjan!